Google Releases New Search Appliance for Business

Google says the new appliance can store 10 million files in a single box.

Google said on Tuesday it is an offering an upgraded version of the hardware appliance its sells to companies and government organizations for Google-style Web search of office documents.

The Web search leader said the latest version of the Google Search Appliance, a pizza-sized box that holds a self-contained search system for managing an organization's electronic files, can store up to 10 million documents in a single box.

The new product has the same capacity as a previous version that came in a five-box rack. Google already sells a 12-box version of the appliance in a rack the size of a stand-up refrigerator that can search up to 30 million documents.

The appliances contain Google software to power the search services, running on storage hardware from Dell.

Once installed in a network, the appliances help staff find documents in various different corporate store houses, from EMC's Documentum, IBM's FileNet, Open Text's LiveLink and Microsoft's SharePoint.

New features in the latest model include greater encryption powers and the ability for Google Alerts to notify users when new documents are stored on the network by colleagues.

Network administrators will be able to manage Google Search Appliances in 27 languages, adding Turkish, Czech, Vietnamese and Portuguese. The boxes can, in turn, deliver search results to office workers in 40 different languages.

Mountain View, California-based Google does not disclose revenue for search appliances, which are part of its enterprise software and services business aimed at corporate buyers.

Roughly 98 percent of its revenue comes from advertising sold alongside services on Google.com and affiliated sites.

But because Google does not reveal revenue for the business, it is hard to verify its claims to be the market share leader in enterprise, as well as consumer, search.

"We estimate, with obviously imperfect information, that we are the market leader," Matt Glotzbach, product management director for Google Enterprise, said in a phone interview.

Rival providers of search used inside company networks include Microsoft, IBM, and Autonomy of Britain.